Right or Dead Right?

The chalk caves were hidden below the Friant Dam.  A short walk from the paved road led to the entrance of a series of bored out shafts from past chalk mining.  All over the walls, were names and initials carved into the soft chalk.  The floor was covered with a fine powder that makes me cough just thinking about it.  As teenagers, we would go there to hang out.  At the end of the center shaft, was a fire pit and some bench seats made of chalk slabs.  Interestingly, we never ran into other people there, but by the amount of chalk graffiti, there had been hundreds of previous guests.  We could be loud, party or whatever, and nobody would know.  The western side of the caves had large cracks in the ceiling and we avoided that area.  How sensible for a bunch of senseless teenagers!  

Teenagers love to be by themselves and away from adults.  We took great efforts to have our space, whether it was by backpacking or camping, or even just fishing at Hensley Lake in the dead of a foggy winter.  I notice how my son wants to hang out with his friends and just be with people his own age.  His generation.  It is normal, I guess.  That’s great as long as they are safe.  We ran into one of his friends who told us how four of them were in a SUV after having dinner at around 6:00pm in a busy shopping center.  While the four of them were talking in the back of the Suburban (“trunking” they call it) two men pulled up and tried to break into the car, not seeing the four because of the tinted windows.  They pressed the panic button on the key chain and exited the car as the two men, described as a father and son, fled while cursing at them in a language other than English.  I asked my son why he didn’t tell us about this, and he said it was because he figured we would be upset.  Well, I have two thoughts about this.  My first thought is the danger.  People don’t fist fight anymore.  They gun fight.  Approaching someone committing a crime is risky.  You don’t know who or what you are dealing with.  Most criminals are either on dope, in a gang or simply desperate.  All three are dangerous.  My second thought is how it is in a man’s psychology to want to protect his wife, girlfriend or child.  The two young men did what they felt was RIGHT by running the thieves off that early evening.  To clarify, this happened two blocks from our home, while it was still light outside. 

Unfortunately, the consequences of doing what is RIGHT is that sometimes you become DEAD RIGHT. 

I'll take my chances... 

Now, I have another thing to worry about as my children grow up and face a sometimes, hostile world.  The danger we faced as teenagers, was the ceiling of the old chalk caves coming down on top of us, so I guess it is all, relative.  Young people deserve the opportunity to be together and to be safe.  I don’t know where that is today, besides the homes we create for them. 

The chalk caves are no more.  The landowner collapsed them because of the liability and now thirty years later, there is no sign that they ever existed.  Someday, a group of archeologists will uncover the walls of names and initials carved into the chalk and make a discovery of a historical place where kids would come to be kids, a place where there were no adults and no parents.  It was a place where kids could be themselves and celebrate being a part of their generation. Today however, if archeologists should go there to dig, I would suggest they bring a gun.

The Scent of Prosperity

There is somebody in the neighborhood who barbeques steak at least three times a week.  I can smell the wonderful scent as I bring in my bag of groceries that include whatever is on sale.  I need a new hamburger recipe.  While we don’t starve, I am reminded of how little our money will buy each time I go to the market.  The economy seems to be turning the wheels of prosperity backwards.  My grandfather had to feed eight children and did so with a freezer full of venison.  My grandmother had a garden and canned for future meals.  Food and money were hard to come by shortly after the Great Depression.  I used to love a Rib Eye steak, cooked medium, with horseradish.  I used to love to buy them for $4.99 per pound too.  Steak is becoming a dish of the upper class.  Fish?  Forget about it… too high.  How about the McDonald’s McDouble burger? It’s a buck!  If only it came with a coupon for a discounted angioplasty!  Sometimes I stand at the end of my driveway a wonder who it is at the helm of that magnificent barbeque.  What brought them to this pinnacle of culinary delight?  My wife and I used to drive around the mansions of the Van Ness Extension area and wonder what these people must do for a living to afford such grand appointments.  It is probably the same occupation as the Master of the Rib Eye upwind from my home.  This just in! Costco has Rib Eyes on sale for $14.99 per pound… while hamburger is $2.89 per pound.  The classes are separating.

Looking Up

What ever happened to space? When I was a child, the first person stepped foot on the moon. It was incredible to see the pictures from so far away. I remember, thinking “it won’t be long before we can all experience space travel.” What happened? Back in 1969, my mom took me to Manchester Center to see a guy fly around with a jet pack. I would love to do that. I am not afraid of heights really, though I am afraid of falling. This somehow makes sense to me. Perhaps there is nothing worthwhile on the moon. If there was something to harvest, we would be mining it to exhaustion. Obviously, there is no financial gain from going there. Who owns the moon? Does America? Are they giving away land grants? Also, what in the hell have they been doing in that space station for all these years? When there is a full moon, I look up. Normally, I never look up at the sky at night. Well that is not entirely true. When that damn sheriff helicopter goes over I look up and curse. I was told the cameras in those helicopters, can read the cover of a magazine sitting on the front seat of your new convertible. That’s fine, but I don’t own a convertible! It is interesting how the helicopters love to fly over low in the summer time, just in time for bathing suits. You think I’m lying? I don’t like them going over the house for one good reason. They might lose power and crash. Maybe I’m paranoid... but it could happen! Where can we hide today? There isn’t even privacy in our own backyards. There are cameras on us everywhere. There are cameras in the stores, the banks, even the neighbors are watching the neighborhood on the internet from their hidden cameras. I wonder if there are cameras on the moon...

I Woke Up Old

It seemed like it happened overnight. Unsuspectingly, I looked in the mirror and saw a different image. An old man stared back at me with disbelief. Too many years had passed avoiding pictures and reflections. Hairlines and waistlines can keep a man from examining the truth. Suddenly it occurred to me that I was not the same. Something had changed without my permission. Like a thief in the night, my youth and even my young adulthood had been taken. That morning, I woke up old.

Somewhere, a decade had been lost. Work had consumed much of my time with endless hours on roads, leading me to and from clients. Family was at home growing up without me. Somehow, a marriage survived. Maybe. Nothing keeps from changing. Looking back on lost opportunities will leave you in ruin of the loss. Today is different and so am I. It takes effort to stay focused on the future when the end is closer than the beginning. The future becomes your children’s, like most everything else when you are a parent. I don’t know where we will be in ten or twenty years. I hope I am here to see my children get married and have kids of their own. Will they make the same mistakes I have? Or, will they recognize the struggle?

Celebrities “re-invent” their image to keep a fresh presence with their audience. Consumers of media grow tired quickly and want to be the first to discover the next new fad. Most of us never change with the times. When you are in your thirties, you can fake your way through life, thinking you are still as young and vibrant you were in college. By the time you are forty, your mind is still in the twenties, but you find your body and appearance is falling behind. Sure, men can color their hair, but at some point, it looks ridiculous. By fifty, youth is gone. You can’t even pretend. Oddly, your mind is young, but the perception of yourself is one of a minority, as you find there are more people younger then yourself. Younger individuals seek to avoid interaction with people the age of their parents. Many cannot relate. It shows. It is disappointing when in your mind you are still twenty. It makes me want to drive to the mountains, walk to a rock cliff and just sit. As my feet dangle over the edge, I could feel the thermal breezes rise from the face of the cliff and fill my lungs with breath of a life worth living. I would stay there until dark and watch as the city lights emerge through the haze. In this mountain solitude, I would find my strength and reaffirm my purpose.

I am sure I am not alone. We all get a little older everyday. Tomorrow, I may wake up and find I’m seventy. I will wonder what happened to the last twenty years. I may need to find that rocky perch and let my feet dangle over the edge and cherish the memories of a good life. I will stay until dark. The city lights will be greater than ever. Each light representing a moment in time when things seemed a little simpler. That day will come before I know it.